


this way madness lies

by GlassRose



Series: old guard history [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alcoholic Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Booker's family, Gen, Homophobia, POV Booker | Sebastien le Livre, not any of the guard, not from booker though!, starts with our boy sebastien's first death, the major character death tag refers to booker's family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:28:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25846594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassRose/pseuds/GlassRose
Summary: He woke again, frozen and in pain, his neck crunching horribly, but his legs still worked, almost. The camp was abandoned. He scrabbled through the grass for supplies, coming upon a tarnished combat knife. Sebastien took it and cut down a fellow deserter to steal his clothes. Russia was a fucking nightmare. Six layers of clothes would not be enough, but he would make do with doubling a regular uniform.Why wasn't he dead?He had a sick thought as he stared at the knife, and impulsively slashed his hand open. He shouted in pain, but after a few seconds, the wound began to knit back together, and once he cleaned his hand in the snow, there was no sign of the injury at all. He felt his neck. The strangulation bruises were gone.What.West and south. He had to go west and south. Home. To Camille and the children. He shoved his hands inside his coat, looked at the sun, and began walking. The tears froze to his face as the wind picked up.A look at Sebastien le Livre's life from his first death in Russia to finally joining the Old Guard for good.
Series: old guard history [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859689
Comments: 20
Kudos: 186





	this way madness lies

**Author's Note:**

> Research indicates that Booker was mentioned having three sons in the movie, and four kids in the comics. I can't find names for anyone but Jean-Pierre, so I made the fourth kid a girl and named the rest of the family.
> 
> In other news, I believe in the comics he hid in the army to avoid the police, but supplemental film materials indicate he was arrested and given a choice between execution and conscription. I might edit this someday to be more in line with the movie.

Why wasn't he dying? Why did he black out only to come back? Why wouldn't death free him of this agony, choking against the rope and his own body weight as the wind swung him back and forth in the frigid Russian air?

The fourth time it happened he clenched his teeth, shut his eyes, and forced himself to stay still. He couldn't breathe anyway. Every few minutes he blacked out again. Over and over. He didn't know how long it lasted until the officers and the army were gone, a  _ deserter _ sign pinned to him as a message for others. Hours? Days? He finally chanced to open his eyes, spots dancing in front of them, and he was alone. His hands were bound in front of him, but a bit of tugging managed to snap the frozen leather ties. He got his hands up to grasp the rope and alleviate the pressure on his neck. He gasped, the cool fresh air filling his lungs at last, and the darkness receded from the edge of his vision just a little.

His fingers were frozen, numb, and then suddenly bright bursts of pain spread over his body and especially his fingers as the feeling began to come back. His hands began to slip. He tried to lift himself up. If he could just get his legs over the tree branch… But he couldn't. Everything he could feel was in agony, and his body shook hellishly with weakness.

The raucous caws of a murder filled his ears, and the crows descended to feast on the swaying bodies. One landed on him. Sebastien tightened his grip on the rope as much as he could with his shaking hand, waited, and then seized the bird by the neck, snapping it in his left hand. His right arm was stuck painfully in position now, but at least he could still breathe. The crows cawed and shrieked and flew away, and Sebastien began ripping the feathers off the bird with his teeth until he could get to the meat inside. Glorious, disgusting, bloody, life-giving _food_. He ate most of it before it slipped out of his hand, and then he reached up and hauled himself all the way to the branch his noose was tied to. Hanging upside by his knees, he got the noose off his neck, but there was ice on the bark, and he slipped and fell.

He woke again, frozen and in pain, his neck crunching horribly, but his legs still worked, almost. The camp was abandoned. He scrabbled through the grass for supplies, coming upon a tarnished combat knife. Sebastien took it and cut down a fellow deserter to steal his clothes. Russia was a fucking nightmare. Six layers of clothes would not be enough, but he would make do with doubling a regular uniform.

Why wasn't he dead?

He had a sick thought as he stared at the knife, and impulsively slashed his hand open. He shouted in pain, but after a few seconds, the wound began to knit back together, and once he cleaned his hand in the snow, there was no sign of the injury at all. He felt his neck. The strangulation bruises were gone.

_ What. _

West and south. He had to go west and south. Home. To Camille and the children. He shoved his hands inside his coat, looked at the sun, and began walking. The tears froze to his face as the wind picked up.

He couldn't die. That was Sebastien's conclusion. Somehow he'd achieved immortality, and while dying would have been easier, if he was alive he was meant to be alive, and he could see his family again. Something out there was giving him a second chance to do right by them.

He hid from the Russians and the French alike. In the first village he reached, he stole clothes that would not immediately mark him as an invader (or a deserter), and the rest of his trek was still awful, but marginally less stressful.

The third night after escaping the noose, he huddled under a pile of leaves in a forest and dreamed. A tall woman with dark, beautiful hair, an axe, and a deep sadness. Two men, one light and green-eyed and the other curly-haired and brown, one reading, one sewing something. The quiet joy they carried spiked when they looked at each other. And her. The woman in the water. She drowned. She woke. She drowned again. Screaming all the while. It never ended until Sebastien was swinging from the tree again and he jerked awake in a cold sweat that froze to his face.

Getting back into France made things easier, however, and he was able to get a ride with a merchant back home.

It was his home, but he'd been gone so long, and he had died in the meantime, and so instead of opening the door to his own house, he knocked and waited.

Camille didn't know what happened to him. He would have blown his cover by sending her a message. All she knew was that he had disappeared one day. He could only hope she didn't think he'd abandoned her.

She opened the door. He tried to say something, but the words caught in his throat.

She looked furious for a few seconds, and then she grabbed him by the coat, dragged him inside, shut the door, put her arms around his neck, and pulled him down into a passionate kiss. Camille was much shorter than he, so her entire body weight was thrown into making him do what she wanted.

Truth be told, Sebastien would have been ecstatic just to have a hug.

When she was done kissing him, she smacked him. "I'm going to kill you! Where have you been, you bastard?"

"Russia?" he said sheepishly.

"You are going to explain every tiny bit of that, Sebastien. I should throw you out right now!" She shoved him, and he let her. "I thought you were dead!"

"I'm sorry," he choked out. "I never meant to leave you. Please, I'll explain everything."

"So you finally came back." The boys were standing in the doorway. Gabriel, the oldest at sixteen, a young man now, looked unimpressed. "Did your mistress throw you out? Oh! Or was it not a woman?"

"Gabriel!" Camille scolded, but little Jean-Pierre ran forward.

"Papa!" he cried, jumping into Sebastien's arms. "Papa, you're home!"

Sebastien closed his eyes and held Jean-Pierre close. "I'm home, I'm home, son. I'm here to stay, I promise."

Louis, now ten, stayed back, but he didn't look as angry as Gabriel. Genevieve, fourteen, appeared behind him, blinking sleep out of her eyes. "Papa?" she said, almost afraid. She shared a quick look with Gabriel but came forward anyway. Sebastien shifted Jean-Pierre to one arm and put the other around her.

"I'm home," he said, "and I…" He took a deep breath and realized that he couldn't tell them about his new secret. They wouldn't believe him, or worse, they would. He didn't know enough about it yet to say anything. "I promise things are going to change. I know I've caused your mother a lot of stress, but that's all over. Honest work, and I'll come home in the evenings, I'll be here for you all."

"That's because Mama is the only one who puts up with you, unlike the clearly smarter woman or probably rich man you were fu--"

"That's enough, Gabriel!" Camille snapped. "If you don't want to greet your father, go back to bed."

Gabriel sneered but obeyed her, turning on his heel to disappear into the bedroom. As soon as he was gone, Louis tiptoed in, and Sebastien set Jean-Pierre down to hug him too.

"All right," Camille said after a minute. "We can all talk and play in the morning. Go back to sleep. Your father and I need some alone time." She shooed them out and crossed her arms, glaring.

He told her what he could: how he'd been hiding from the police and had stolen an army uniform, but then he had no chance to run when he realized they were headed to Russia. How he'd trained and fought, but then winter fell and there was no food, and when he'd tried to get away, he'd been caught and left for dead. He didn't tell her about the hanging or the crow. Just that the officers had failed to fully kill him.

"I don't  _ need _ this, Sebastien," she said, rubbing her eyes. "Gabriel has been bringing us all the money since you left, and...my breathing, it's...it's been bad this winter. And all the worse for no one to warm my bed."

"But...it passes," he said, his stomach twisting into knots. "It always passes."

"After you left I…" She touched her belly. "Number five. But I lost it."

"Camille," he breathed. "I'm sorry. I wish I...I will be here for you now." He reached up to touch her cheek.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Bastard," she said again, but her tone was fond. "I'm not bedding you. I can't go through pregnancy again. But you can keep me warm."

He nodded, and she led him to their bed. He looked at his clothes, still sitting, waiting for his return, and changed into his nightshirt. She donned her gown and they climbed into bed, Sebastien curling around Camille and thinking for the first time in a long time that he might actually be all right now.

He dreamed of them again. The screaming, suffering woman. The tall woman, drinking alone in a tavern, lost in thought. The two men, naked in bed, grinning at each other and laughing. They were beautiful, sweat glistening on their skin, and Sebastien wanted to look away, feeling like he wasn't meant to see this, like it was betraying Camille somehow.

"We have to find him," the green-eyed one said. "We can't leave him alone. I only wish he hadn't been forced to free himself like that. I cannot imagine finding out that way. At least I had you."

Sebastien tried to speak, but nothing came out.

"We will," his lover said. "But Andy's right, once he stops moving, it will be easier."

"I know, but every day we wait is another day he is alone."

Sebastien suddenly realized they weren't speaking French and their words became unintelligible. He suddenly saw a brief flash of a dark, African man smiling at him, and then it was morning and Jean-Pierre was wriggling his way under the covers.

"Papa," he whined, "I dreamed you were gone again."

"I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere," he said sleepily, rolling over to pat Jean-Pierre's head.

"Jean-Pierre," Camille croaked, "bring your mama some water for her headache."

"I'll do it," Sebastien said, kissing her head.

"That I would like," Camille agreed. "You should wait on me hand and foot."

"I will," he murmured, kissing the rest of her face.

"Papa!" Jean-Pierre complained.

"All right, away with you," Camille said, wincing a little but smiling all the same.

Maybe not forgiven, but she hadn't thrown him out. Maybe it was all temporary. Maybe his bizarre inability to die was a fluke, a freak accident, a gift from the heavens to get him home. Or more likely a cold-induced hallucination. Now he was back where he belonged, and everything would be all right. He would never have to think about the crow and the hanging again, and the dreams were probably just dreams. People he'd seen around. What Gabe said last night had been bouncing around his skull, and that was why he dreamed of the men in a sexual setting, that was all.

Sebastien was fine. He pulled on some trousers and scooped Jean-Pierre up, carrying him to the kitchen. He was too big for that now, really, but he liked it anyway. Genevieve was cooking eggs in the kitchen fireplace, and there was a pitcher of water already on the table.

He got a job, a menial, heavy labor one, but his body didn't mind it so much. He tried not to think about what that could mean and pretended not to notice how quickly small cuts and bruises disappeared. Six months passed, and Gabe stopped making scathing comments about his father's sex life, so Sebastien considered that a win. He and Camille had stopped having what she deemed "dangerous" relations but enjoyed each other in bed anyway. He still dreamed of the four strangers, sometimes with the two men and the non-drowning woman together, but he ignored it. He worked hard for the little money they had, but he was happy just to be with his beautiful children and wife.

Until the day he and Genevieve were walking along a main street and a man of means stopped him. "You! You stole my coin purse."

He probably had, but Sebastien didn't recognize the man and he certainly didn't have his coin purse. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Liar! I remember you! Two years ago you stole my purse and my wife's necklace, and you thought you got away with it, but I never forget a face."

"I'm not who you think I am. Please, not in front of my daughter, I don't have any money, I don't--"

The man slapped him. "I've had enough of you." He directed his guards. "Deal with him."

"Papa!" Genevieve shrieked as two burly men dragged Sebastien into an ally. Passersby watched but didn't do anything.

"Go home, Gen!" he yelled at her. "Stay out of it! I'll meet you there!" He tried to fight off his captors, but they were a little bigger and a lot stronger. "I don't have any money," he growled at them as they turned out his pockets and took all five centimes.

"Then my master will have satisfaction," the shorter one informed him, drawing a knife.

Sebastien struggled against the other man who held him, but the first one plunged the knife into his chest. He choked, gasping for breath as blood welled up in his throat and mouth and nose and teeth and oh god, not again, please. Then the man slit his throat and the world faded slowly to black. Cold stone pressed against his ear. The last thing he heard was Genevieve screaming.

The darkness did not last. He jerked awake and clutched his neck, gasping for air. Gen screamed again. "Papa?"

Shit shit shit. "I'm all right," he said, spitting blood. "I'm all right, dove, they must have aimed poorly." It was the stupidest possible lie when he was completely drenched in his own blood and she must have seen them cut his throat, but she was barely a woman--and Sebastien was not ready to think of her as one--so maybe she would trust her papa anyway.

She didn't. She just stared, her face tear-streaked and puffy, then reached out with her handkerchief and wiped away the blood on his neck. "I don't understand," she said.

"I don't either, lamb," he said, knowing the fear and sadness he was feeling were in full display on his face. He wanted to protect her. He didn't know how.

"We should go home," Gen said.

He wanted to hug her, but he didn't want to get blood on her. He nodded and let her help him up. People stared at his bloody shirt as they walked home. He kept his head down. If he was a monster, he didn't want them to see his face. "Maybe...let me explain to everyone else," he said to Gen, but she didn't answer.

Camille screamed and fussed over him when they got home. "What happened?" she demanded. "Whose blood is that?"

"I had a run-in--" Sebastien started, but Genevieve interrupted.

"It's Papa's. All of it. They cut his throat."

Sebastien closed his eyes.

"What do you mean, they cut his throat?" Camille demanded, blotting away the blood and seeking out the wound that was already gone.

"I saw it. I saw it happen. I touched it. And his chest. And now it's gone. It's all fixed. But he was dead. He was." The words tumbled from her lips and he couldn't stop her, didn't feel he had the right.

"Lamb, I think you've had a fright," Camille admonished, not unkindly. "Sebastien?"

He swallowed. How long could he keep up this charade? Even if he tried to hold out for longer, how could he hurt his daughter like that, make her feel mad or force her to keep his secret from everyone she loved? "It's true," he said, staring at the floor.

"Papa," Gabriel said as Louis and Jean-Pierre hid behind him, whispering, "how did you get away when you deserted?"

"I didn't," Sebastien confessed, his voice shaking. "They killed me. I just...kept coming back."

"You're lying. Both of you are crazy."

"We're not lying!" Genevieve yelled. "And I'm not crazy! Papa has some sort of magic. Show them!" She grabbed the kitchen knife and thrust it toward Sebastien. "Show them!"

He took it slowly.

"What are you doing?" Camille said sharply.

He looked at Genevieve. How could he hide it from his family? He took the knife to his arm.

"Don't," Camille begged.

"It's all right," he said, and he sliced open his flesh.

He swore in pain and Camille yelled at him. "Why did you do that? Come here, let me--"

"Just watch," Sebastien said, holding his arm out. The blood oozed slowly, and nothing happened. Was it over? But the blood slowed and the skin sealed itself over as if the knife had never touched it.

"My god," Camille murmured. "What is this?"

"I don't know," Sebastien said. "I swear I don't know."

"I told you," Genevieve said. "It's magic."

"Where did you get this magic?" Camille asked.

Sebastien grabbed a cloth and began to clean the blood off himself. "I never asked for this. I don't understand why it's happening. I wish I could undo it."

"Then you'd be dead twice over," Gabriel pointed out. "You'd have left us."

"No," Sebastien protested. "I would never want to leave you. But this isn't right, it's unnatural."

"Give me your shirt," Camille said, and he obeyed, continuing to clean his chest. "Children," she said. "Gabriel. You must not talk about this. Your father is blessed with some kind of magic, but if others hear of it, they won't understand. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes, Mama," Jean-Pierre and Louis mumbled. Gabriel and Genevieve nodded.

Sebastien still had his family. He truly was blessed.

That evening, a cool wind blew in and Camille began coughing. Sebastien piled up blankets and pressed tight against her until her strained breath evened out. He kissed her shoulder and settled in to sleep. "Everything heals, doesn't it," Camille murmured. "You don't get sick."

It was true; since he'd first died, he hadn't been ill as long as he ate, and he'd recovered quite speedily from the frigid days and nights in Russia. "I believe so."

"Must be nice."

Sebastien said nothing. It would be strange for a bit, and then it would be all right.

Camille began asking Sebastien to share his magic with her, to ease her pain, and every time he told her he couldn't, he didn't understand or ask for it, and he didn't know how to share it. She'd accept it, and then she'd ask again a week or two later. Gabriel kept his father's secret, but Sebastien was never able to have a meaningful conversation with him these days. He kept dreaming of the four people. Suffering. Sadness. And Sebastien began to discover the men, though enthralled with each other, held each other close at night because losing each other was too frightening to contemplate.

He wondered if they were real. He wondered if they could see him.

Winter came. Camille's hacking worsened, and she escalated her hints that Sebastien should use his magic to heal her. He wished he could help her, but he could only keep her warm at night.

In deep winter, a year since Sebastien had escaped the army, there was a knock on the door. Sebastien answered it, and Jean-Pierre followed him.

The green-eyed man, his lover, and the sad woman were all there. The fourth woman was not--and Sebastien had a sudden sinking feeling that she was real and they couldn't find her.

"Hello," the green-eyed man said in passable French. "Do you know us?"

Sebastien told Jean-Pierre to go play with Louis and stepped outside. "Can you tell me if I'm going insane?" he asked, shutting the door.

"It is all right. We're like you."

"Is that good or bad?"

The man took Sebastien's hand. "You're not alone. We've been trying to find you. It took longer than we hoped. I am Nicolo, this is Yusuf al-Kaysani and Andromache of Scythia. Nicolas and Joseph, if you prefer the French names. What's your name?"

Maybe they could help him heal Camille. "Sebastien le Livre."

"Sebastien," the other man, Yusuf, said. "It's wonderful to meet you."

"The other one," Sebastien said, because he had to know. "The woman. In my dreams."

Andromache inhaled sharply. "You've seen her? She's alive?"

"I wish she weren't. She's drowning. Constantly. I want it to stop."

She closed her eyes, and Yusuf put a hand on her shoulder. Nicolo looked down. "Quynh. We lost her. We failed her. We won't let that happen to any of us again."

There was something odd about his accent, about Andromache's face, and Sebastien asked, "How old are you?"

"Seven hundred and some. Yusuf and I first died in 1099. Andromache is...old."

Sebastien sank down against the door. "I thought it...I thought it would stop."

"It doesn't stop," Andromache said. "Not for...it can end, but there's no way of knowing. One day you stop healing. I've seen it once. It won't come for you for a very long time."

Nicolo sat next to Sebastien. "We want you to come with us. I know it's a lot to take in. We have time to talk about it."

"Go with you?" Sebastien blurted out, feeling incredibly stupid for not realizing they'd come to take him away. "Where? Why? Are there more people like...like us?"

"Only the five of us. We try to use this gift to do some good."

Sebastien looked between Yusuf and Nicolo and then to Andromache. "Quynh. She was yours, wasn't she."

Andromache didn't reply, but he had his answer.

"You people are insane if you think I'm going to leave my wife and children for your secret magic club made up of sad mourning woman and eleventh century lovers who are having intercourse in my dreams."

"The dreams will stop now that we've met," Yusuf said. "They help us find each other."

"Oh, that's even better," Sebastien said, almost hysterical now. "Now instead of Madame Misery over there and you two gazing into each other's eyes for hours, I just get to dream about your dear friend you loved enough to let drown for eternity, is that right?"

"We searched for a very long time," Nicolo said. "Many years. Quynh is always in our thoughts. But it is impossible. That's why we don't want to leave you on your own. We know--we saw, we felt your first deaths. We don't want you to be alone anymore."

"I'm not alone! I have a family. I can't leave them, I--" The winter was hell on Camille, and Louis was sickly since an illness over the summer. "You know about this gift, this magic we have."

"We only know what it does, not why," Andromache said.

"But you can help me. My wife and son, they're ill. She knows about me, she's asked me to share my magic with her, but I don't know how."

"I'm sorry," Yusuf said. "It doesn't work like that."

"But you! You two, you said...how can I have it, but not my wife, I don't understand. Is it blood? If I give her my blood?"

"No," Andromache said. "Anything you can think of, I've tried. Let me spare you the suffering. We don't get to choose who becomes one of us. You are only the sixth immortal I've ever found. We don't get to choose when it ends. Trying to exert control over any aspect of it will get you nowhere. And you won't age, but they will. The only way to help them is through normal human means."

He'd known already, but hearing her say it tore him up. It wasn't fair. Camille shouldn't have to suffer. Louis deserved to be strong and happy. And the thought of little Jean-Pierre growing up, growing old, dying while Sebastien stayed forty-two forever… He couldn't bear it. But he'd promised he wouldn't leave.

"We could provide your family with money," Nicolo said. "You would not be abandoning them. You could not have known this would happen to you."

"Stop, just stop!" Sebastien snapped, putting his hands over his ears. He had thought it would be better not to be alone, to find someone who could explain what was wrong with him. How stupid he had been. They didn't have answers. They just wanted to uproot the life he had and force him to disappoint them all again. Gabriel would be working alone again. Camille wouldn't have him to help when she was sick. And little Jean-Pierre and Louis were still growing up--he couldn't let them do that without a father. "I can't leave them. I won't. I don't know you; they're my world."

"They won't be."

"Andy," Yusuf admonished.

Nicolo shared a look with Yusuf, and he took Andromache and left. Nicolo turned to Sebastien. "I understand. We will be staying here for some time, and we would like to spend time with you."

"I don't want you to."

"Yusuf and I had families too. Not wives and children," he acknowledged, "but siblings, parents. People we loved very much."

"It's not the same."

"No. What I want you to know is that we will be here for you when you are ready. Whenever that is. We will make contact regularly."

"Please don't."

"I want to respect your wishes, but I've been around long enough to know that facing this alone is not bearable."

Sebastien scoffed. "Do you know that? You said you and your lover died at the same time."

"That is true, we found each other at the point of our swords, but seven hundred years is a long time. We have seen you, Sebastien. We have been looking for you to bring you into our family. We want you with us."

He was struck with a wave of hatred for Nicolo. Manipulative scoundrel, using  _ family _ like that to get Sebastien to join them. He looked guileless, but seven hundred years could probably teach a man to do anything. Of course he wanted to be understood. Of course he wanted to be loved by someone who didn't beg him for a gift he couldn't give and desperately wished he could. Nicolo had no right to use that against him.

"Papa!" Jean-Pierre's little voice called as he heaved the door open at Sebastien and Nicolo's backs. "Mama's sick again!"

Sebastien rose quickly. "I'm coming."

"Who's this man?" Jean-Pierre demanded.

"He's no one. He's leaving." He shut the door behind him without a word. He just wanted them to leave him alone. Camille was in bed, wheezing. He set blankets to warm by the fire and put the hot ones on her chest, trading them out as they cooled.

"You could do more," she said, her breath ragged.

Sebastien said nothing. She was upset, of course she was. When she felt better, she would accept the truth.

Nicolo came back alone the next day. Camille was sleeping, Gabriel was working, and Genevieve had taken the little ones to the market. "I told you to leave me alone," Sebastien said, shutting the door in his face.

Nicolo stopped him, wedging his foot against the door. "I brought you this." He held out a bag of francs.

"What the hell is this?"

"For your wife and son to see a physician."

"Why?"

"Because you're family. Because I  _ can  _ help, so I must. I want to. Maybe it will help, maybe not, but at least you will know. Is there anything else I can offer you?"

"I...I don't know, um, no. No."

"I will be around," Nicolo said. "We are staying in the inn three blocks that way." He pointed. "If you have questions or just want to talk to us."

"Oh." Sebastien felt ill. "Nicolo, I said some things yesterday. I wouldn't want you to think I have any...um, problems with you and uh, Joseph."

"No, I didn't think so, but I am glad to hear it. I hope we didn't make you uncomfortable."

"I wouldn't expect you to stop that for a year. I'm married. I know how it is. It's over now anyway, so…" Sebastien shrugged.

Gabriel appeared behind Nicolo. "Excuse me. I would like to enter my own house."

"Pardon me," Nicolo said, half turning to see him. "I will take my leave." He gave Sebastien the bag of money and left.

Gabriel closed the door, met Sebastien's eyes, opened his mouth, took a breath--

"I don't want to hear your theories," Sebastien said, setting the money on the table. "I'm tired of it. You know I would never do that to your mother. Why do you keep saying it?"

"You--" Gabriel looked slightly panicked. "You never get angry."

"Do you want me to get angry?"

Gabriel swallowed. "No. I--no. I wanted...to know if you would be angry, if you…" His hand scrabbled for the latch behind him. "If you would hate me because I said...because I said you…"

"Bed men," Sebastien said.

"Papa." He was so young. Only seventeen. Too young to be carrying all the weight his father had left him with, and more besides. "Papa, I…"

"Oh, Gabriel," Sebastien said gently. "Come here." But he ended up closing the distance between them himself, because Gabe was afraid to move. "I love you," he said, hugging his son. He was tall now, nearly as tall as Sebastien. "I am so proud of the man you've become, and I know you'll be a better man than I've ever been."

"But your name," Gabriel whispered, sniffling.

"My name is nothing. The world is too big for that." He took a step back and took Gabe's face in his hands. "Has anyone hurt you?"

Gabe shook his head. "No. Well. No one I've…" He stared at the floor. "...been with. I wish I felt safe. Like you do."

"I don't feel safe," Sebastien said, immediately regretting putting it on his son.

"But you can't be hurt, not really. If I had your magic, I wouldn't be afraid of anyone."

Quynh flashed through his mind. "I can't give you this. If I could, I would, but I can't. I'm not happy about it. Truth is, son, I'm terrified. We're not meant to be like this. I wish I were normal, like you. I may never see heaven. I don't want to be alone, I--" He stopped himself. Telling his fears to Gabriel wasn't fair. "I just want you to understand, I can't control it, I never asked for it, and I can't share it or change it. Do you believe me?"

Gabriel looked down but nodded. "I do. Don't tell Mama, please. She worries too much."

"I won't," Sebastien promised. He opened the bag of francs and started counting them. "This might help her. It's to take her and Louis to see a real doctor."

"Who is that man?"

"He's…" Sebastien tried to find an answer. "A friend, I think."

Gabriel nodded. "I suppose I can't ask anything more."

"Not yet."

The doctor prescribed some medicines for Camille and simply "better food" for Louis, more meat and vegetables. They both made it through the winter, and the extra money from Nicolo allowed the family to eat better. By the time spring came, Louis was much heartier, shivering less at night, and rising early in the morning to help his mama with chores. Sebastien worked more, taking menial labor jobs to make sure they could keep feeding him well. Camille warmed up and was much more affectionate toward her husband. It felt like old times, like being young again. Andromache visited alone that autumn to share a drink that looked expensive but tasted like any liquor.

"Where are Nico and Joseph?" Sebastien asked, sipping at the scotch whisky, enjoying the warmth in his chest.

"They go off on their own sometimes."

"They leave you alone?"

"We're not trapped together. Well, they almost never separate, but the rest of us--well, me. And you. We can. Besides, I'm not alone now, am I?" She gave him a real smile. "I love them deeply, and they try very hard to be kind to me, but they forget what it's like to be alone."

"You, you don't see her. Right?"

Andromache stared into her glass. "No. Once we meet, the dreams stop."

"She's still there."

"I--I'm sorry you have to… It's my fault."

"I'm sure that's not true."

She turned her head, a pained smile on her face. "You tell me in fifty years whether you still believe that."

He tried  _ not _ to think about his life in fifty years. If God was merciful, he'd be dead. "Do you think she sees me?"

"I don't know. She probably doesn't sleep like that, so she probably doesn't dream...I don't know. I hope so. I like to think it's some comfort to her, to connect with one of us again."

Maybe, or maybe Quynh would someday escape and be completely insane and try to kill Sebastien for taking her place.

Andromache stayed in town for a few weeks before leaving to meet up with Joseph and Nicolo.

Camille's lungs survived two more winters, but she became colder and colder toward Sebastien. Her requests that he share his magic became more and more demanding. Genevieve met a young man, though her interest waned quickly after she discovered how eager he was. Sebastien had to warn him away. Louis stayed healthy, and Jean-Pierre broke his arm when a horse nearly trampled him in the streets. Gabriel and Sebastien put in more time working to pay for the good doctor to care for him. Every year in autumn, at least one of the other immortals would pay him a short visit. Nicolo began teaching him Italian and English.

By the third winter, Camille refused to let Sebastien touch her in bed, even to warm her. Louis and Jean-Pierre brought her warm blankets when she needed them, and her medicines when they could afford them, but she caught something bad, and five days after Midwinter, they couldn't stop her wet, ragged coughs. Gabriel and Sebastien bundled her up and carried her to the doctor, who laid her on a flipped over, tilted chair with cushions to clear her lungs. She hacked a lot of thick fluid up, and for a few hours Sebastien had hope. "Selfish bastard," she growled before she could no longer speak.

In the end, she lived for two brutal, painful days in the clinic. The church took care of the burial, and Sebastien reopened the bottle of whisky Andy had left behind when she'd visited a few months back.

"You couldn't have fixed her," Gabriel said when he found his father drunk on the kitchen floor. "So you say. But it's still not fair."

"No," Sebastien agreed. "It's not." He passed the bottle to Gabriel, who took a big swallow.

Eternity had never looked so vast.

Yusuf visited on his own three years later. Nicolo and "Andy" were working on something Sebastien didn't get to know about yet, apparently. Gabriel was twenty-three, a confirmed bachelor, and Genevieve had stepped up to care for the young ones. But she was twenty-one now, and Louis and Jean-Pierre seventeen and fourteen respectively, so she was starting to look for a husband, or better yet, a trade women could do. Since Camille's death, Gabriel and Sebastien's relationship had been much shakier, and Genevieve kept her feelings close to her chest, but the younger ones weren't so distant.

"They've all grown up so much," Yusuf said, watching Jean-Pierre and Louis pass them coming home from the market. Evening was falling. "You must be proud."

"I am," Sebastien said, smiling. "Gabriel and I are a bit up and down, and he won't let me meet his, ah, companion yet, but I have time. How is Nicolo?"

"Good, as always. Having a religious turn. He used to be a priest, you know."

"I thought you were religious."

"I am. It gets more complicated the older I get. Nicolo is more back and forth. Do you--"

"Monsieur le Livre!" A little boy came running toward them and knocked on the door. "Monsieur!"

"That's me, what's happening?" Sebastien asked.

"The doctor sent me, Monsieur, your son!"

Cold, icy tingling broke out over Sebastien's skin and his heart skipped a beat. "Take me, now," he said, trying not to shout.

"He's at the clinic," the little boy said, and Sebastien took off.

Not again. This could not be happening again. He barely noticed the cold of the air against his sweaty skin, and he didn't bother knocking before bursting into the clinic. "Gabriel?" he called.

"He's over here," the tired voice of the doctor sounded from the next room over.

Sebastien ran toward the sound. Gabriel lay on his side, whimpering in pain. Blood ran from his head, his chest, his stomach. The doctor had a heavy cloth pressed to the stomach wound. His fingers pointed at a grotesque angle on one hand. "No, no, no, no," Sebastien begged, kneeling at his side. "Stay with me."

"Why...you." Gabriel's voice was breathy, hard to understand. Wet. Blood trickled from his lips. "Why...not...me."

"Just stay with me," Sebastien pleaded. "You're going to be all right. Right?" He looked at the doctor, who shook his head.

"Stomach wound's too deep," the doctor said. The cloth on his stomach was already dripping blood everywhere.

There was a hand on Sebastien's shoulder and he whirled around, standing up to grab Yusuf's jacket. "We can do something! Please! We have to do something."

Yusuf shook his head, his eyes shining with tears. "We can't. I'm sorry."

Sebastien sobbed and knelt down, clutching Gabriel's unbroken hand as the light faded from his eyes.

"He's gone," the doctor said.

"I'll see you again," Sebastien whispered.

"I want to sit with him," a new voice said. Sebastien turned to see a man Gabriel's age standing by Yusuf. "Move."

How could he argue? He stepped back and sat on the bench. Yusuf sat by him and put a hand on his back. The young man sat on the bed by Gabriel and brushed his hair back. Gently brought his hand over Gabriel's eyes and closed them. Yusuf rose and persuaded the doctor to come with him into the other room. Only when they had gone did the young man kiss Gabriel's bloody forehead.

"I will manage the burial," he said, not looking at Sebastien.

"I--" Sebastien could barely breathe. "I asked to meet you, but--"

"All I know about you is that he only asked you for one thing and you refused him. I do not want to know you."

No. No, Gabriel had understood. He was smart, he was…

He was…

Lying.

Sebastien stood. "Thank you for the happiness you gave to my son," he said, his voice steadier than it had any right to be.

He went home. He told Genevieve, Louis, and Jean-Pierre. He drank until he blacked out and woke up in his bed. His empty bed that he used to share with Camille, who had died hating him.

Gabriel was dead. Gabriel was dead, and his useless, pathetic father had watched and not even asked who murdered him or why. Genevieve woke him up with a cold, tired, "Your friend is here," and left the house.

Yusuf sat in the kitchen, his expression angry and pensive. "I took care of it," he said as Sebastien sat down across from him. "The killers. I'm sorry. It was…" His fist clenched. "...exactly what you think."

"They killed him because he was…"

Yusuf nodded. "They can't do it anymore. I know it's small comfort, or none at all, but--"

"Thank you." Sebastien rubbed his eyes. "I thought he understood. But he was just angry as Camille at the end."

Yusuf stayed for over a month and helped him out until Nicolo and Andy returned to collect him. They left him extra money again, and he wasn't too proud to take it. Louis had an apprenticeship with a carpenter now, and Jean-Pierre ran messages sometimes. Genevieve did a bit of sewing but was actively looking for a husband.

She married an accountant a year later and moved out of the flat. With the more comfortable wages her husband made, she was able to send semi-regular deliveries of books and occasional treats to her brothers and father. Jean-Pierre began working for a butcher. Sebastien felt trapped. He'd been doing bricklaying on good days and more menial tasks, sometimes leaving the city to do farmwork on worse days. His best skill was worthless as an honest man. He could forge anything, he could work as a printer or scribe, a clerk, but no one would trust him with his past or the part of town he lived in. He comforted himself with Genevieve's books and tried to spend time with his sons while they still wanted to.

There was a gulf there that only widened when he tried to cross it. When they said they didn't blame him for Gabriel's death, or Camille's, whether they were lying or not, they weren't telling the whole truth. And the whole truth was that they would not, or could not fully understand his strange condition and it was certainly eating at them to watch their father remain unchanged, not even suffer the annoyance of a paper cut for longer than a few seconds, while they grew up and suffered hurt, fell ill, spent weeks getting better.

Sebastien adored his children. He did. But as the years went on, he began to look forward more and more to the immortals' visits. Nico, who used to be a priest, taught him Italian and entertained his religious questions. Andy engaged in drinking competitions with him. Yusuf was an accomplished artist, and he and Sebastien found common ground in their abilities in putting pen to paper, discussing techniques and different implements.

He liked them. He liked them a lot. He didn't want to join their dramatic, self-involved mission to "do some good" or whatever Nico was saying these days, not when he had his real family, but he couldn't deny the comfort of their presence.

Uprisings came and went. The le Livres kept their heads down and lived their lives. Sebastien worked with different people every five years, walking farther and farther for jobs. His face was frozen in time, and sooner or later, it would be noticed.

Louis was thirty when he stopped talking to his father. No amount of pleading or trying to talk with him could change his mind. He had become convinced that Sebastien was selfishly withholding his magic from his family, he wasn't interested in hearing about his father's "love" when that love was clearly weak and worthless, and until he would help relieve his horrible backaches, Louis didn't want to see him anymore. It was months before Sebastien learned of his death in the June Rebellion. The news was confusing, uncertain, but his old carpentry master swore that Louis had only been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and was never part of it.

Genevieve stopped sending books. Sebastien visited her. Her daughter Clara was suffering from cholera, and he couldn't help. When the little one died, Genevieve told him to go to hell and never spoke to him again. She died at age forty from a lung disease like her mother. Her husband never let Sebastien say goodbye.

If the house was empty, the world was emptier. Jean-Pierre and Sebastien came home at night and tried to breathe. He was thirty-three and unmarried, though he'd tried his hand at finding a wife for years. Sebastien didn't need the money, but he worked more to distract himself from the nightmarish nothingness staring him down.

Slowly he tried to reach out to his youngest. Tried to build up what they had. Tried to build a bridge across what they'd lost, their shared pain, back to each other. Some days were better than others. Some days they took walks along the Seine, laughed, smiled, connected. Some days Jean-Pierre stared at him and shook his head. "You should look older," he said, and they couldn't have a real discussion.

Sometimes all three immortals visited together, sometimes Yusuf and Nico, sometimes just Andy. Quynh had never left his dreams and he was starting to feel sick at how used to her pain he was. He feared he was forgetting real human suffering, that he couldn't remember what it meant to be real, that his children had hated him for good reasons. He shouldn't be alive. Had he died in Russia, Gabriel and Louis might still be alive. It was a wild reach, perhaps, but it felt true.

Eight years since Genevieve's death passed faster than was fair. Nico had warned him the days might not get shorter, but the years would begin to gallop past. Jean-Pierre started coming home from the butcher's shop with terrible aches and pains, and like the rest, started to press his father to share his magic. "You didn't do it for them, but I'm all you have left! You'd let me suffer and die too?"

"I can't! I would die for you if I could ease your pain, but it's not possible!" Sebastien hated this circular argument, this endless attack from the people he loved. Having to defend himself was hard enough, but disappointing them, hurting them like this was almost beyond bearing.

He brought Jean-Pierre to the doctor. The old doctor, the one who had seen Camille and Gabriel die in his clinic, had moved on and retired. The new one hadn't been there long enough to notice Sebastien's unchanging body and face. He sent them to a hospital for real testing, where Jean-Pierre lied and said Sebastien was his brother. Sebastien couldn't miss the coldness in his tone. Their savings began to dwindle, and the doctors there diagnosed Jean-Pierre with cancer of the bone. He was forty-one.

Sebastien wanted to kill himself.

Tried to, twice, to no avail.

Jean-Pierre spent his forty-second birthday in the hospital bed with Sebastien by his side. Even with the medicines the doctors administered, he was in immense pain, and Sebastien could only play his role as his last surviving loved one cried and shouted and called him selfish. Threw things at him. Rejected the glass of water Sebastien tried to offer him. Screamed at him to leave and never come back.

Jean-Pierre was all he had left. He wanted to say the right thing. He wanted to tell him how he loved him no matter what.

But this was the fifth time he'd been here, and nothing had worked before. Why would Jean-Pierre be any different?

Sebastien walked away, his son's screams of rage and pain ringing through the ward.

Just like his father, Jean-Pierre was forty-two when he died, and unlike his father, he didn't come back. Sebastien had him buried next to his brothers and spent the last of his money on the cheapest liquor he could get.

One bottle blinded him, but his eyes repaired themselves. He drank the rest of it anyway. He didn't eat. Whenever he came back to himself, he opened another bottle until that was fixed. Quynh screamed and he drowned her out with more liquor.

Nicolo, Yusuf, and Andy found him in a pile of bottles on his kitchen floor. How long it had been since Jean-Pierre's funeral, he didn't know. They cleaned him up and forced him to eat. Someone's hands were on him at all times, he noticed, which was probably their sneaky fucked up way of...of...something.

Of comforting him, he conceded once he'd gotten some food in him. Andy might be a manipulative person but Nico was almost annoyingly genuinely kind, and Yusuf was open and sweet. One of them even dealt with the bucket he'd been using. He didn't ask which one.

"Staying here isn't good for you," Yusuf said. "Let's get out of Paris."

Sebastien nodded dumbly. What else was there? They cleaned him up, got him fresh clothes, nicer ones than he'd worn in a very long time, and helped him pack what mattered. He kept Genevieve's books and his old writing instruments. There wasn't a fourth horse--they hadn't been expecting Sebastien to be joining them for decades, they said, so Nico and Yusuf shared a mount, though they both offered to ride with Sebastien if he preferred. He turned them down. The people who had joy should keep it.

They crossed the Seine and headed south, eventually taking a boat down the Rhone to the sea, where they booked passage to Tunis.

"We don't have to stay if you don't like it," Yusuf assured Sebastien. "I had wanted a trip home, and I thought you might like to go somewhere new. And warm. It's warm."

He should have taken Camille south, somewhere warmer and drier. He didn't bring it up. There was no point. She was long gone.

Yusuf and Nico made a point of touching Sebastien and Andy quite a lot. Friendly, warm hand squeezes or putting an arm around their shoulders just to talk. Whenever they could safely share a bed at night, they did, but they weren't oblivious to their other friends. Sebastien was easily the tallest in the group, but that didn't stop them from offering him casual affectionate touches.

The first time Nico put an arm around him, he cried. They had pitched camp outside of Paris and were sitting around the fire eating dinner. Yusuf was saying something about a woman in London, but it just buzzed past Sebastien. He couldn't hear it. Nicolo laughed and reached out to rub Sebastien's back. They'd all been doing that the whole day, but this time he slid his hand all the way over to rest on Sebastien's shoulder, which he gently rubbed with his thumb. And left it there.

He couldn't breathe. He was back in the noose, in the frigid Russian winter. And then he was curled up in the grass, his head resting on something soft, and fingers threaded through his hair as a warm hand rubbed his arm. "You're safe. You're with us. Take your time. We're here for you."

"Jean," he whispered. Where was he? Where was Jean-Pierre?

Why wasn't he dead?

He came back to himself, focusing on the fingers stroking his hair, and he realized his head was pillowed on Nicolo's thigh.

"Sebastien," his soft voice murmured. "Are you with me?"

"I--" Sebastien was afraid to speak. If Nicolo stopped touching him he would be trapped in darkness forever. He was falling, broken, empty, anchored to nothing but the touch of a man he'd never even wanted in his life.

"It's all right."

Jean-Pierre was dead. The only people left in his life were the undead, immortals, cursed like him. "I left him alone."

"You did all you could. It's not your fault. He's at peace now."

Sebastien touched his face. It was wet. "I think…" he said slowly, his throat aching, "I think I stole their lives." Why else would they all have died so young?

"You didn't," Andy said.

"Just--just sucked it out so I could stay young."

"It doesn't--"

"And not even young, because I'm an idiot, should've started ten years earlier like the boys."

"No," Andy said. "It doesn't work like that. Nothing to do with you, nothing to do with our immortality. It's just shit luck. And I'm sorry."

It took some time for Sebastien to believe that. They were on the boat to Tunis when Andy spoke with him alone. "You think Nico sucked the life out of his family?" she asked, and Sebastien had to concede that he did not. "Yusuf?" she added, to which the answer was obviously not. Sebastien was a thief, a liar, a deserter, and a criminal, and a shit father, and Andy was still something of a mystery, but Nico and Yusuf were soft, kind, loving people.

So. Shit luck then.

"It may feel like they don't understand people like us," she said, "but they do." She stared out at the waves of the Mediterranean. "We need them. But they need us too."

"Did Yusuf ever tell you about my oldest?"

"He did."

"What did he do? He never told me."

"He found the murderers, killed them, and threw them in the Seine."

"He was sure it was them?"

"Yes. We take care of each other."

"Be nice if we could get revenge on…" He shook his head. "Everything else. I had a granddaughter, but the cholera took her." He tried to laugh but it came out sick and strangled. "It would be worse, wouldn't it. For her to grow up while I'm stuck frozen like this. For her grandfather to be yellow-haired with a straight back when she's white-haired and stooped." He sniffled. He spent a lot of time crying these days.

"It doesn't pass quickly," Andy said, looking at him. "The pain. But it will get easier."

"Are you saying I'll forget them?"

She leaned on the rail. "Probably not. I've forgotten many, many things. The people who have meant the most to me over the millennia are still here." His hand shook and she took it, holding it between hers. "We have so much time. I don't want you to rush your grief. Nico and Yusuf like to talk with each other. They've been together so long that most situations don't need a long talk anymore. New things they talk to death. But really, they're very good at that. If that helps you. If not, you get me."

"And what do you do?"

"Talk about other things. Plan to avoid that kind of pain in the future. Fuck."

"Ah," he said. "Cradle robber."

Andy burst out laughing and even Sebastien cracked a smile. It felt like a betrayal of Jean-Pierre to feel anything good at all, but he was alive and the rest of them were dead, and he had eternity to be miserable. "If I weren't," she said, grinning, "I'd never get any at all. Though, I wasn't offering. Today," she added. She still had his hand. "You know, Sebastien--hmm. That's too long."

"You're Andromache."

"But I'm Andy. We need to find you something shorter. Le Livre...hmm…"

He should have stopped her, but he didn't. Arguing was bound to take far more energy than he had.

"What about English?"

"English?"

"Nice and short. _Book_."

" _Book_? What's that?"

"Le Livre. In English, _Book_. Book...man. Booking. Book...I'll get there."

It didn't matter what she called him. His name felt like something from before, anyway. From when he was normal, when bruises stayed for days. Maybe halfway from when his real family was still alive and hated him. If Andy wanted to rename him, christen him something else for this new life, this limbo, this dream state, he didn't mind. He'd be someone else.

He learned English. He became fluent in Italian. He picked up a rifle again and killed. With the shot, with the bayonet, with a knife, with his own bare hands. Because they asked him to. Because now they didn't fight for king and country (or Emperor, or Pope); they fought for what they thought was right. Protected the defenseless. Stopped the cruel and power-mad. For what little good it did, Booker thought. They were four people, missing their fifth, and even if they couldn't stay dead, they could still only influence the world so much when they had to keep to the shadows.

At least alcohol still worked. Worse, these bodies, frozen-in-time as they were, couldn't get hangovers. Couldn't get sick from drinking too much and then stopping all at once. Aside from Nico and Yusuf's attempts to coax him into sobriety a little more often, there was absolutely no incentive to stop.

He dreamed of Quynh, sometimes surrounded by the corpses of his family cursing him, even little Clara. When his new family heard him cry at night or jerk awake, shaking, they comforted him, but as the years passed, the nightmares became regular, and he no longer alerted them every time.

The world was changing fast, and Booker threw himself into keeping up with it. To offer his family the skills he'd had in another life. Forging got harder in some ways, easier in others. He kept up, made them papers when they needed, practiced lettering when they didn't.

He felt old looking at regular people, but his family made him feel very young. It wasn't their fault--he loved them and they were good to him--but he never quite felt like one of them. They were kinder to him than he deserved. Andy was practically a god. Yusuf and Nicolo were paragons of goodness and love. And then there was broken, petty criminal, well of despair, utterly undeserving of eternal life and health Booker.

No matter how long he lived, that wouldn't change.

One hundred seventy-three years later...

He already loved her. He knew he deserved his punishment, but the thought of not being there for her while she figured out immortality cut him deeply. He hadn't planned on her. He hadn't planned on most of this. He and Copley were in over their idiot heads with Merrick. He had wanted to help humanity and die on his own terms; he hadn't counted on Andy's loss of immortality and he certainly hadn't wanted Nicky and Joe to be tortured like that. One has to assume that mad scientists are sadistic, entitled bastards, but Booker had been too deep in his own melancholy to even think about that. And Joe and Nicky had suffered for it. He'd even shot Andy.

God, he'd shot her and the scar was still there and she just  _ forgave _ him. He didn't blame Joe and Nicky. They had a lot more to live for and the medical testing hadn't been gentle. Not to mention that one security guy who had it out for them. Booker had signed them over to a bratty sadist and his barely leashed violently homophobic hired gun. They could hate him. They  _ should _ hate him.

It wasn't that. He knew them too well. They wanted to feel safe again, and they couldn't do it with Booker nearby. He deserved to be kept from the only people in the world he loved.

He could have waited. He could have waited just a little bit longer, and Nile would have shown up, and he could have taken her under his wing and shared the good parts of immortal life, and maybe he would have felt fucking alive again. In a hundred years, she'd still be young, but not that much younger than him, all things considered. Would she even want to see him again in a century? She'd freed him, but she knew only the absolute worst person he could be, and none of the parts that might be worth knowing.

He opened another bottle of crap whiskey and drank himself to sleep.

For the first time in two hundred and eight years, the dream was different.


End file.
